Posture Correction
Exercises: The Anat Baniel Method

Do you feel like your posture isn't what it should be? That
maybe you should do some posture correction exercises to relieve your pain and
discomfort?

You are probably right... but the kind of exercises you need
have more to do with waking up your
brain's ability to make new connections and feel alive again... the posture
improvement will be a secondary benefit.

We get in a rut
in life, physically and neurologically, where we are stuck in the same routine
day after day. We stop making new connections, lose focus on our goal, and
become disconnected from our bodies.

How do we get out of the rut?

The 9 essentials of vitality!

How are these posture correction exercises?

We will get there in just a minute.

Anat Baniel has written a book, Move Into Life: The 9
Essentials of Vitality, where she discusses at length how to use these nine
essentials. Here they are... be careful that their simplicity doesn't deceive
you! These factors have been shown in the research to turn on neuroplasticity.

The 9 Essentials of Vitality

1. Movement
with Attention - As opposed to the automatic motion that we so often
perform, this is slowing down and paying attention to how we move to allow our
brains to make new and better connections, and reorganize the motion. I often
have patients take a motion that is giving them trouble and slow it way down
and pay attention to the motion. I have them pay attention to various parts of
their body as they do the motion to give the brain plenty of information to
reorganize the motion.

2. The
Learning Switch - Basically, you are curious and learning about everything
or you are not. Turn your curiosity back on! Anat has suggestions for how to
turn the switch back on.

3. Subtlety
- Pushing harder will not necessarily get you there. Sometime backing off and
trying with less force will get you better results, and maybe in a way you
didn't expect. When you reduce the force, you can notice subtle differences
better. This is important in movements and relationships.

4. Variation
- When you introduce variation and playfulness in your life, it gives your
brain more information to work with, more creativity, and more options. In her
book, Anat points out that "mistakes" are just an opportunity for
more variation. In my practice, I try to get people to try different movements
that might be bothering them in a variety of ways.

5. Slow
- This gets the brain's attention and allows us to learn new things. You can
only do fast what you already know. If you want to change a motion that hurts
you, slow it down!

6. Enthusiasm
- If you reward the brain for the small positive changes it gives you, then it
will give you more. If you are never happy with what you have accomplished...
then why should the brain try harder? (or the other people around you for that
matter.)

7. Flexible
Goals - Know your goal, but have fun with the road there. If you are stuck
with achieving a certain goal in a certain ridged way, it will increase your
stress, and make it so you may not see another opportunity that comes along
that may achieve your goals in a different way.

8.
Imagination
and Dreams - This is rich information for your brain to be able to create
what was never there before. It gives you goals to work for, and helps you
figure how to get there. You can even imagine motions before you do them so
your brain can organize it before you do it.

9.
Awareness
- This is the awareness of being fully present in the moment, being aware of
how you are feel, how you are moving, what you are doing, and what you are
sensing. In our rushed and stressed lives, we are usually stressing about the
past or the future, and not present in the now. Awareness brings us back to now
and lets us be less stressed and more grateful.

Anat has also created an online Desk Trainer that
will walk you through how to incorporate these concepts into posture correction
exercises you can do right at your desk. I think the little trainer is
fantastic. I first learned the exercises from her book, but it is easier to watch
the animation and do the exercise than try to do it from a description.

How are these
posture correction exercises going to help me?

These are simple exercises that help you integrate the above
concepts for vitality. If you focus and perform these exercises, it will
increase your awareness of your body and will automatically start to change the
way you move and your balance. As I have said in other parts of this website,
good posture is about good balance... it is not static. You can't find one good
position and say "There, now I have good posture."

No... posture is not static... we should not be static. As
Anat Baniel says, "Movement is life."

So go check out some sample posture correction exercises
and do them right now. See how you feel. I am willing to guess that you are
going to be sitting a little taller and breathing a little freer =)